By the Numbers: WV Employment

We are curious about the way communities and economies have changed over time. In WV, we have taken a closer look at top private industry employers in order to shape discussions around the questions "Where are we now?", "Where do we want to go?", and "How will we get there?". To understand where we are now, though, we have to address the question "Where have we been?". In WV, one big change in the past several decades has been in the reign of manufacturing jobs. To figure out just how big of a change there has been, we had to find some information about top industries in WV over time. While manufacturing was the #1 private industry employer in 1979, it dropped to #5 in 2011, employing 51,832 people compared to 131,828. This is just one comparison we pulled out from an infographic in the What's Next, WV? downloadable discussion guide. Visit the guide by clicking on this link, or by visiting the Materials section of our website.